My chores brought me in the neighborhood of the gun range and I had taken three pocket pistol sized plinkers along. Biggest problem, now that we are almost a year and a half into the latest ammo crisis was the Federal bulk copper plated ammo that gave me a nice concerto of different reports and a few failures to even drive the slide back. I only put the targets out to 10 yards and stepped a little bit back to avoid the illumination at the range, right over the booth, to make my front sight appear larger. I first shot it for accuracy and then five yards for single handed left and right hand shooting and a few fast double taps to get a feel for the guns.
My highly unscientific findings are following.
First, Beretta 87.
This is a handsome and well made pistol with a good enough trigger and sights that are apparently geared towards the typical German 25 meter target shooter; it shoots high but is easy to shoot. The gun is easy to control also in rapid fire and is definitely a great gun to have!
Next one is a rimfire Walther PP. I have had a few of them over the years and had one of the first rimfire PPs made in Zella Mehlis according to the curator of the Walther museum. I gave that one to my son who babies it. Well, this one has not been shot a lot and has a kind of harsh trigger. I blame the trigger for the one that got away, down left. I have spent a lot of trigger time with rimfire PPs, so it did well on the rapid fire drills.
Finally, the rare HK4 in .22 l.r. that actually works and has the correct extractor. The gun has laughably small sights! Picking it up and aiming, it is not impressive but that first impression is deceptive and firing that gun will quickly change that first impression. It is really easy to shoot well and has a smooth trigger and very little felt recoil. It looks as if HK engineers got it right with their buffer technology! Rapid fire is a breeze and a ton of fun. The "4" in HK4 stands for four calibres that can be shot by just changing barrels and magazines and flipping the breach plate around to put the firing pin in the proper positioning. HK quickly found out that the shorter centerfire extractor was not working well and had a dedicated rimfire extractor marked .22 l.r.
This little HK is my favorite plinker and "warm up" gun that I use before running the same drills with centerfire guns.
My highly unscientific findings are following.
First, Beretta 87.
This is a handsome and well made pistol with a good enough trigger and sights that are apparently geared towards the typical German 25 meter target shooter; it shoots high but is easy to shoot. The gun is easy to control also in rapid fire and is definitely a great gun to have!
Next one is a rimfire Walther PP. I have had a few of them over the years and had one of the first rimfire PPs made in Zella Mehlis according to the curator of the Walther museum. I gave that one to my son who babies it. Well, this one has not been shot a lot and has a kind of harsh trigger. I blame the trigger for the one that got away, down left. I have spent a lot of trigger time with rimfire PPs, so it did well on the rapid fire drills.
Finally, the rare HK4 in .22 l.r. that actually works and has the correct extractor. The gun has laughably small sights! Picking it up and aiming, it is not impressive but that first impression is deceptive and firing that gun will quickly change that first impression. It is really easy to shoot well and has a smooth trigger and very little felt recoil. It looks as if HK engineers got it right with their buffer technology! Rapid fire is a breeze and a ton of fun. The "4" in HK4 stands for four calibres that can be shot by just changing barrels and magazines and flipping the breach plate around to put the firing pin in the proper positioning. HK quickly found out that the shorter centerfire extractor was not working well and had a dedicated rimfire extractor marked .22 l.r.
This little HK is my favorite plinker and "warm up" gun that I use before running the same drills with centerfire guns.
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